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He glided past me, one of the monsters on his payroll lifting a ski
When they were past, I stepped out into the flow of bodies and matched their pace, keeping my hands in my pockets. My own coat wasn’t as regal as the Little Prince’s, but it was functional, and contained a number of useful items. It also had holes cut into the pockets so you could arrange your hands without being seen. Keeping my eyes on the three amigos, I felt around for the blade I’d secreted in an i
I followed in their wake for a while, watching. I knew Nad had slipped into my gravity without having to look; Nad and I went back a long way, and he’d never liked being alone. It didn’t take long to establish that the Little Prince’s security wasn’t worth whatever he was paying them: Like a lot of amateurs, they were one-dimensional, and thought all their troubles would be coming at them from the front, with plenty of warning and a lot of fanfare. Not once did they look back.
Turning my head a little to get an idea of the environmental factors, I almost missed a step, because three Monks were keeping pace with me. I couldn’t be sure-the Tin Men all looked alike-but my immediate thought was that these were the same three who’d been preaching across the street from us. One was looking right at me, marching through the crowd like it didn’t need eyes. I stared back at it in surprise for a few steps, then tore my eyes away, checking my meal ticket. They were still pushing through the crowd like they owned the streets. From the show they were putting on-all grim determination and regal pomp-the Little Prince was probably out on his collections, squeezing water from stones and performing other miracles on a par with getting money out of my fellow citizens. This all worked to my advantage, because tough guys didn’t look over their shoulders to see who might be creeping up behind them, and tough guys didn’t need to take basic precautions. More shitheads died being tough every day, when a little good old-fashioned paranoia and cowardice went a long way. It wasn’t even cowardice. It was an aversion to death.
The Monks were still keeping pace, but were no longer looking at me. They just floated through the crowd. They were harmless, in my experience, but they creeped you out. Even people who made their living killing and maiming their fellow human beings shied away from those perfect rubber faces, that serene certainty. I didn’t doubt the Monks could defend themselves, but every Monk I’d ever run across had been unfailingly polite and nonconfrontational. They still made my skin crawl, and having three of them following me like fucking albatrosses made me nervous.
The crowd thi
Sure enough, he stopped in front of a flimsy stall that was staffed by a man about my age and two young kids with the hollow look of poverty. The place was selling meat pies, the meat not much of a mystery considering the pile of dead rats the boys were engaged in ski
The proprietor stepped forward, wringing his hands. I didn’t listen to what was said, I just watched: The Little Prince stuck out his chest and crossed his arms, listening to whatever plea the old man was shelling out with his chin thrust out, nodding importantly. The two goons just menaced the whole operation, making the boys flinch and knocking shit off the counter, being tough.
I moved fast. There was no talking. No speeches. I wasn’t here to make an impression. I sca
One muttered something under his breath and turned to the other, gesticulating forcefully and hissing something foreign-half the hired muscle in the damn city spoke gibberish.
The other swore-you didn’t need to speak the language to recognize swearing-gesturing at the Little Prince, then threw up his hands and glared at me. “Non mon problume, okay?”
They knew the score: With the Little Prince dead, no one was going to pay them, so there was no longer a job to do, and they certainly didn’t want to end up dead, too. Non mon fucking problume indeed. These were the bottom-of-the-barrel assholes; you couldn’t trust them-they had no goddamn pride, no ethics. To illustrate the point, his fellow made a show of wiping his hands, and the two of them lumbered off, arguing loudly. I looked at their former employer, and he stared up at me with wide, dead eyes. The family was already back at work, furiously making rat pies for the hungry people of New York City. You could count on the good people of New York to never remember a face.
The crowd swirled around me as I reholstered my gun, and then Nad was at my shoulder. “Good work,” he said.
It didn’t feel good. “Hell,” I said. “I need a drink.”
II
AN ENDLESS TRAIL OF SUNSETS
Pickering’s was a good place the System Pigs hadn’t noticed yet, below the radar of the entire System of Federated Nations. It was semilegit, with some ancient liquor license and a paper deed, somewhere, or so rumor had it. It was located on the first floor-the only floor left-of a burned-out hulk of a building that looked, from the outside, ready to collapse at any moment. Liberal bribes to the Crushers kept it open, at least for the time being. Pick himself was the oldest man I knew: fifty if he was a day, ancient and always pissed off, a fat, slouching blob of a man with white, yellowing hair and gnarled, painful-looking hands. I’d never seen Pick stand up.
Pick had just two rules: You paid your bills, and you took fights outside. Inside, it was civilized. Pick didn’t use Droids, either-the only waitress was a living human being, and she would slap your hand to prove it. The place was thick with smoke and plotting, and nobody looked around too freely. It was best to mind your own business and keep your hands on the ancient wooden tables scrounged from the wreckage of riots past. Pickering’s was not a gentle place-these days you either had a job or you didn’t, you were either System Police or a criminal. You had to be, and Pickering’s was full of the thin, gray people like me, people not above killing someone, stealing something, starving to death over the course of an entire lifetime. People got killed in Pickering’s. Even the most civilized places had their moments.